Highly Unsuitable: Mr and Mischief / The Darkest of Secrets / The Undoing of de Luca

‘Well, she’s not our sort, is she?’ Philip said, and Emily could tell he was trying to be reasonable. ‘I thought you were dragging her around as some sort of charity case, and I was nice enough to her because of that, but you couldn’t actually think.’ He laughed again, and Emily closed her eyes.

Oh, no. No, no, no. This was not how she’d imagined this conversation going at all. Philip was supposed to start gushing about Helen, and how lucky he was, and Emily had even envisioned a little teary-eyed gratitude towards the person who had pushed them together. Push being the operative word.

This was bad. This was very, very bad for Helen, and almost as bad for her because it meant she’d been horribly, humiliatingly wrong.

And Jason had been right.

Both realisations were equally painful. She opened her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Then I think you’ve been a bit unfair to Helen,’ she said, her voice tight with both anger and guilt. ‘You’ve certainly spent enough time with her so she might think—’

‘You’re the one who seems to think something,’ Philip cut her off. ‘Not Helen.’

There was too much truth in that statement for Emily to object. She had encouraged Helen. If she’d given her a word of caution instead, who knew how much of this mess might have been averted. And, Emily was forced to acknowledge miserably, she’d encouraged Helen at least in part because it had been a way of proving something to Jason. Of showing him he was wrong.

Except it looked like he wasn’t.

‘Well, I’m afraid I’m not free this weekend, Philip,’ Emily said, her voice decidedly frosty. ‘Goodbye.’

She disconnected the call and then with a groan buried her head in her hands. Shame and regret roiled through her. She heard Helen asking her, Do you think he likes me? and her own assured—smug!—response: I’m sure of it.

And now … now she would have to tell Helen just how awful

Philip was. She surely could not let Helen go on wondering, hoping … yet how could she do it? How could she admit how wrong she’d been? Wrong on one occasion, at least.

She straightened in her chair. She might have been wrong about Philip, but she was still right about Richard. He was the same, just as she’d always known.

Predictable. Steady. Cautious. And far too sensible.

Just like—

Emily stopped that train of thought immediately. It wasn’t going anywhere good. And, really, she needed to focus on Helen, who deserved someone special, someone who would sweep her off her feet properly—

Already she began a mental flip through the eligible men she knew. Doug in accounting was divorced; Eric, a friend of a friend was reportedly single although there had been rumours of—

She forced herself to stop. It was too soon to set Helen up with someone else and, considering this current catastrophe, perhaps she should take a short break from matchmaking. Relationships could so clearly be disastrous.

At lunchtime Emily went reluctantly downstairs, knowing she would see Helen and somehow have to break the news.

Helen’s face lit up as Emily entered the lobby. Emily forced herself to smile back. ‘Are you free? I thought we could grab a bite.’

Helen nodded happily. ‘Oh, yes—’ Then she gave herself away by glancing towards the blank screen of her mobile; Emily had a sinking feeling she’d been waiting for Philip to ring.

‘Come on, then,’ she said in an attempt at brisk cheer, and hurried Helen out of the building.

In the end the only way to tell Helen was honestly, flatly, without any evasions. Emily kept it as brief as possible, not wanting Helen even to guess at Philip’s awful attitude of contempt.

‘I’m sorry, Helen,’ she said after she’d told her, in the kindest terms possible, about Philip’s decided lack of interest. ‘I know it’s my fault for encouraging you—I really thought he was a better man than he is. And—’ she swallowed, forcing herself to meet Helen’s bewildered, wide-eyed gaze ‘—and honestly I think you’re better off without him. I just wish I’d realised that a bit sooner.’

Helen glanced down at her untouched lunch. ‘You can hardly blame yourself,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m a grown woman, Emily, and I was the one who—’ She swallowed and sniffed, making Emily’s heart ache again with guilt and regret. ‘And I let myself be blinded by him. He was so charming, and when he.we.’ She stopped, sniffing again, and a wave of dread crashed over Emily.

‘Helen … did anything actually … happen between the two of you? ‘

Miserably, Helen nodded. ‘A few weeks ago, after the theatre, I.I invited him back afterwards. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think I was … well …’ She stopped as tears began to silently leak out of the corners of her eyes. ‘You’re so together, Emily, and everyone likes you even if you don’t need anyone. But I was lonely and he seemed so nice—’

Emily reached across the table and clasped Helen’s hand tightly. She felt perilously close to tears herself. ‘This is all my fault,’ she said quietly, guilt lancing through her again, causing a physical pain. ‘All my fault.’ Damn Philip. He might have been quick to dismiss Helen to her that morning, but he’d obviously liked her enough to take her to bed. The thought made Emily’s insides burn with both shame and anger. The blame could not be laid solely at Philip’s feet. The man was a snake, but she’d convinced Helen he was kind and charming. She’d convinced herself, as well. The only person she hadn’t convinced was Jason. ‘I’m so sorry, Helen,’ she said uselessly, for the damage was already done. This was why she kept herself out of relationships. Perhaps she should start keeping other people out of them too.

Her matchmaking days, Emily thought grimly, were over.

The next few days passed in a blur of work and regret. Emily could not let go of the guilt that ate at her for pushing Helen towards Philip. She dreaded seeing Jason, knowing he’d been right all along and would undoubtedly let her know it too, yet he didn’t make an appearance.

‘He had to fly back to Africa again for a few days,’ Eloise told her when Emily broke down and asked for information. ‘But he’ll be back for the fund-raiser.’

The charity fund-raiser, next week at his flat. Emily would be going early to help decorate, and yet while this thought had filled her with a certain tense expectation just a few days ago, now it was accompanied by a different dread. She wasn’t really looking forward to admitting he’d been right, which, knowing Jason, she would be forced to do sooner or later. She certainly wasn’t looking forward to his response.

What did I tell you, Em? Sensible is what women need …

No, it isn’t, she thought crossly. It isn’t.

Still, curiosity and anticipation helped to staunch that deepening dread as she headed over to Jason’s flat in Chelsea Harbour that Friday afternoon. She’d invited Helen as her guest, hoping an evening out—without Philip in attendance—would help cheer her up. She tried not to think of what Jason might say about that; no doubt he would accuse her of meddling again.

The air was sharp with cold as she and Helen climbed into a cab and headed for the well-heeled neighbourhood just north of the Thames.

Gillian had given her a detailed list of instructions about the caterers, the decorators and the musicians. All Emily would have to do was supervise. And perhaps have a little peek round.

A tingle of excitement made its way up her spine as she and Helen left the cab for the sleek modern building that housed Jason’s penthouse. The high-speed lift had her racing to the top floor, and the doors swished silently open directly into Jason’s flat. His home.

Emily stepped gingerly onto a floor of highly polished ebony that seemed to stretch endlessly in several directions. The flat was as fabulous as Gillian had said, and also stark. And even soulless. If she’d been hoping to gain some clue into Jason’s inner workings—or even his heart—from where he lived, then she was surely disappointed. The flat revealed nothing. Perhaps, Emily thought wryly, that was indicative of his inner workings. Jason was not a man given to great emotion.

Emily stepped into a soaring reception room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river. Just as Gillian had said, everything was black or white. Or black and white. Emily took in several very expensive looking black leather sofas, a coffee table of white marble that looked like a piece of modern sculpture, a canvas hanging over the black marble fireplace that was nothing more than a rectangle of white with one messy splotch of black ink in the bottom right corner. It had probably sold for thousands of pounds, Emily thought wryly, and it looked like something her niece had made by accident.

She glanced in the dining room and took in the huge ebony table and matching chairs, a thick snowy-white carpet and several more modern canvases—one black-and-white prison stripes, another like the stripes of a zebra. It was amazing. It was awful.

It revealed nothing about Jason, not the Jason she knew, the man who had always been there to bail her out and scold her afterwards, who managed to smile with both disapproval and amusement, whose eyes turned the colour of honey—

The man who had kissed her. And who had wanted to kiss her, maybe more than once.

The buzzer sounded and Emily jumped nearly a foot in the air. The caterers must have arrived. She and Helen exchanged guilty looks—they’d both been snooping—and Emily went to let them in.

The next hour was spent organising all the staff, checking on a thousand tiny details and dealing with the dozens of texts from Gillian, who still clearly wanted to have a hand in the operations.

‘I thought you were at a film,’ Emily said when Gillian rang her for the third time.

‘I am,’ Gillian told her. ‘Some boy band thing. It’s dire. Did the caterers find white asparagus?’

‘Yes, and black truffles.’ Even the canapés were black and white. ‘Don’t worry, Gillian. Just enjoy your time with your daughter.’

Gillian let out a rather trembling sigh. ‘It’s just so odd,’ she confessed in a low voice. ‘We haven’t spent much time together at all.’

Emily’s heart twisted in more sympathy than she’d ever had for Gillian before. ‘Then go spend some,’ she said, ‘boy band film and all.’